Category: Tampa Bay

As big, notable buildings go,Tampa typically comes up short. The reality that the 31-story Rivergate Tower–aka the “beer can building”–is likely our most “iconic” is, well, humbling. And this just in: the 400 N. Ashley Drive tower, which was built in 1988, has just been sold. Again.

And sales always prompt context and reflection. Rivergate Tower was constructed for $150 million. Sale price was $70 million. That was then, and this isn’t. Also, it was designed by architect Harry Wolf to symbolize a lighthouse.

Alas, the “lighthouse building” never had a chance against the wise-guy moniker that has lived on through various buyer incarnations. Our edifice complex lives on.

Virtually everyone agrees. We need to take a more effective, more enlightened approach to school discipline.

Suspending students, we’ve seen, often enables their dropping out. Having minority students suspended in rates far out of proportion to their percentage of enrollment, as we’ve also seen, is still unacceptable. “Zero-tolerance” scenarios, as we well know, can be double-edged, pedagogical swords, where discipline and standards meet overkill and unintended consequences.

Naturally, the issue begot a task force, which was preceded by a series of community “chats.” And subsequent recommendations. And consequent revisions in student-conduct policies as recently passed by the Hillsborough County School Board.

As a result, students will not be suspended for being late and the vaguely-worded “inappropriate behavior” will no longer be an offense. And area superintendents will have to personally sign off on all suspensions of more than five days. And hopefully suspended students will be allowed to make up missed work.

Two points.

First, this only starts with statistics. We know objectively that we have a persistent problem. But this is, more importantly and subjectively, about kids. About a quarter don’t graduate. Many of those dropping out were products of multiple suspensions. We know the correlation. The marginals become the departed.

As Superintendent Jeff Eakins has bluntly noted: “We didn’t get into this business to see students fail. We got into this business to help students be successful.” This doesn’t mean channeling Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society,” Edward James Olmos in “Stand and Deliver” or Sidney Poitier in “To Sir, With Love.” But it does mean examining all the variables that are part of the give-and-take of the teaching process.

We also know the societal upshots of failure. Drop outs are short-changed lives–as well as problematic contributors to society. This becomes everybody’s problem.

Second, it’s important to look beyond properly-prepared, relevant teachers and administrators for help. That includes guidance counselors, social service workers, community churches, local recreational organizations and even Julianne Holt’s public defender office.

But let’s not kid ourselves. Poor parenting–or no parenting–is the biggest factor in school discipline.

If students walk through education’s portals with values and expectations already at odds with a learning culture, their chances of a suspension-free path to graduation have already been compromised. That’s the stark reality–and getting literal about what constitutes “inappropriate behavior” won’t really matter.

If parents–or responsible adults of whatever stripe–aren’t on board, nothing changes. If there’s no reinforcement of what’s being taught academically and what’s being imparted behaviorally and ethically, nothing improves. The onus is on those with the biggest influence and most seniority to prepare their kids for the reality of the classroom and the world that awaits outside.

School Board member Carol Kurdell put it in proper context. “Families have these kids six years before we ever get them,” she said. “So it’s time for the community to step up.”

Never has “it takes a village” been more applicable.

A number of cities, including St. Petersburg and Sarasota, have police review boards comprised of private citizens who independently assess and review issues and problems that inevitably arise between police officers and residents. It’s part of a national trend that’s been fueled by the number of high-profile reports of police officers abusing or brutalizing certain members of the public.

The operative dynamic is racial. Unaddressed, flammable incidents can spark the next Ferguson, the next Baltimore.

Tampa is hardly immune.

Not everyone, to be sure, is in favor of such boards. The ACLU and citizen activists, for example, are more comfortable with the concept than some police officials. A lot of it has to do with the real-world charge of such boards. If “oversight” is merely a euphemism for “interference” and knee-jerk criticism, it will accomplish nothing but increased frustration, mistrust and enmity.

For such a board to be successful, says Lendel Bright, who coordinates the one in St. Pete, you need “cooperation between the community and law enforcement. We are not telling the department what to do.”

In short, it needs to be a partnership. Everyone’s lives are impacted. Everyone, in effect, is a stakeholder.

Professional law enforcement doesn’t have all the answers. Communities are societal hybrids with their own inimitable dynamics, from socio-economic issues to drug usage. As for those communities, per se, seeing the police as the enemy and friend of “snitches” is hardly helpful.

Regardless of where they live, police officers have to be perceived as part of the community. That’s why the “Park, Walk and Talk” initiative instituted by St. Pete Police Chief Tony Holloway has been receiving positive feedback. Residents must feel they’re being protected–not occupied by those who seemingly can’t distinguish between pro-active and profiling. It helps if residents can encounter officers outside the context of criminal investigation.

In turn, community members also must acknowledge that serious policing can be a thankless, life-risking job too often characterized by a profusion of victims and perps and an absence of witnesses and every-day nice folks. It’s in their community’s self-interest if they’re not part of the problem.

Maybe the bottom line is this. No one is always right. No one is always culpable. And no one is above scrutiny.

Be open to a bigger picture–and drop the ‘tude. Otherwise, review becomes a sham, matters are made worse and Baltimore may still loom.

Last Saturday there was a community “conversation” on race relations and Tampa law enforcement. The forum was entitled: “Injustice and Inequality in Tampa’s African American Community in the Buckhorn Era,” which sounds more confrontational than conversational.

It worked. It got the media’s attention, as well as that, no doubt, of Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who couldn’t have liked the cheap-shot, judgmental approach.

Speaking of the media, the front page Sunday headlines of the Tampa Tribune and Tampa Bay Times couldn’t have been more in contrast about the same event. “Forum Puts Focus on Race Relations” read the Trib’s version. “Buckhorn’s Leadership Blasted,” topped the Times’ account.

Yes, it goes with the territory. No, it’s really not a formal “endorsement.” Call it the cost of doing business.

But it’s still deflating to see that Jeff Vinik, the popular Tampa Bay Lightning owner and master-planner behind the makeover of Tampa’s downtown waterfront, is a generous campaign contributor to Gov. Rick Scott. Last week Vinik wrote a $100,000 check to a political fundraising committee run by Scott. It wasn’t the first time. Three months prior, he had written another $100,000 check.

He’s now the largest individual donor–second only to Walt Disney World Parks & Resorts overall–to Scott’s disingenuous “Let’s Get To Work” committee. A dubious, however expedient, honor.

Since these are post-gubernatorial election contributions to a term-limited politician, it means they go toward future, post-Tallahassee, Scott scenarios. We know Scott harbors senatorial ambitions. Imagine enabling that?

But we get it. It’s a classic CYA move.

The con-jobs governor had to sign off on the ($17 million) funding to relocate USF’s Morsani College of Medicine to the downtown Tampa tract that Vinik had donated. Construction is scheduled to begin next year.

Why chance a veto by a governor who is hardly Tampa’s favorite political patron? Even if the downtown-anchor project is an urban catalyst that portends jobs and economic ripples. Even if it’s already been vetted by those who know best. Even if this should be right in the economic wheel house of this governor. Even if this is meaty substance–not pork or turkey.

It’s the way the game is played. But, alas, it involves Scott.

* From social media to traditional mass media, we’ve all seen countless photos of what happens around here when we get too much rain over too little time. While abandoned vehicles on Kennedy Boulevard were a surprise, it was no-wake-zone-as-usual on easily overwhelmed Bayshore Boulevard.

Among the Bayshore images that were ubiquitous:  the couple who were blithely floating along in inflatable rafts last Saturday. One quick question: What part of E. coli don’t you understand? The view through the balustrade might be captivating, but that’s brackish, sewer-water ambience all around you. Sure, it might look inviting, but in all its contaminant variety and menace, doesn’t coliform count?

* The drenching downpours were a reminder that One Buc Place, a first-class headquarters and practice compound, doesn’t have what most big-time college programs now have: an indoor facility. The first day of media-magnet practice: rained out of One Buc and relocated to USF.

Actually, it’s been revealed that the Bucs are now on the case and there are plans to have something indoors by 2016.

Jeff Vinik, Tampa’s patron saint and owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning, characterized it as “bittersweet.”

He was referring to the recent resignation of Bolts’ CEO Tod Leiweke, 55, who will now become the chief operating officer of the National Football League.

We get it.

Leiweke was a keeper–and the Lightning managed to keep him for five years after Vinik had lured him from Seattle, where he had been CEO of the NFL’s Seahawks. It was one of the first things Vinik did after purchasing the Lightning in 2010. There was no bigger personnel priority.

In short order, Leiweke became recognized as the hands-on, go-to guy for virtually anything to do with the Lightning–from overseeing the renovation of Amalie Arena to helping in the redesign of new team jerseys.

He also became a major player in the Lightning’s community outreach, including work with the homeless, and was the CEO of Strategic Property Partners LLC. That’s the Vinik company that is planning the $1 billion, “true 18-7 live, work, play, stay urban environment” in the Channel District.

He’s exactly the civic-minded, entrepreneurial, business-savvy sort this evolving market and fast-forwarding downtown can’t get enough of.

As for Leiweke’s new position, it’s a promotion in all the ways up-the-career-ladder changes are ascendant moves. Pay, power and profile.

With a couple of caveats.

First, he’ll be working for Roger Goodell and not Jeff Vinik.

The latter is an unassuming visionary with Tampa’s best interest vital to his own vested interest. The former has been called “the most powerful man in sports” as well as somebody who will do anything to “protect the shield” of a business too often in the news for all the wrong, integrity-challenged reasons. They range from domestic violence and drugs to weapons ownership, “Bradygate,” and wrongful-death lawsuits over head injuries. It’s never a good sign when NOW calls for your resignation.

Second, in Tampa Leiweke was, in effect, in charge of synergy. The better the franchise, the better the relationship with the community, the better the Channel District overhaul, the better it is for everybody. Win, win, win, win.

In NFL headquarters in New York, he’ll be involved with network TV and sponsors and Super Bowls and all that, but you can bet damage control and image whitewash will be prominent. Leiweke played a game-changing role in Tampa. With the NFL, he will have to play a culture-changing role. Big difference.

Through Sept. 20, the Tampa Museum of Art will be displaying Andy Warhol and other postwar-era, cutting-edge printmakers such as Chuck Close and Frank Stella. Three decades of Warhol’s career are chronicled, including those famous portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Mao Zedong–and how often do those two even show up in the same sentence? There’s also Warhol’s camouflage series and controversial Electric Chair portfolio for fans of his more outlandish works.

The exhibit, “In Living Color: Andy Warhol and Contemporary Printmaking,” comes courtesy of Jordan D. Schnitzer, a Portland, Ore.-based art collector and philanthropist. Schnitzer, the president of Harsch Investment Properties and the eponymous head of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, lends generously and continuously throughout the country, especially to non-mega art markets such as Tampa.

Curiously, Schnitzer has had no working relationship with USF’s Graphicstudio, which dates to the 1960s renaissance in American printmaking and is considered by many as the U.S. Mecca for printmakers, including the Rauschenbergs, Rosenquists and Lichtensteins. Schnitzer, on hand for the Warhol opening, acknowledged the lack of any formal Graphicstudio relationship but conceded: “We should.”

Who knows, maybe the Schnitzer-TMA connection will ripple even further in this print-familiar market. It should.

The announcements came in the same, mid-July week. One had to do with Riverwalk additions, the other was about a consultant hired by the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corp. One had to do with plans for waterfront historical monuments, the other had to do with corporate recruiting.

They are about this city’s history, which not enough folks know about, and its future, which can only be envisioned. They are complementary components, Exhibits A and B of what’s afoot around here these days.

Friends of the Riverwalk–aided by the unveiling help of Mayor Bob Buckhorn and Hillsborough County Commissioner Sandy Murman–formally presented renderings of monuments that would honor three of the most significant events in Tampa’s history: the introduction of the cigar industry, the connection of Henry Plant’s railroad to Tampa’s port and World War II. If fund-raising is successful, they would be added to the dozen and a half historic busts that now dot the Historical Monument Trail.

Commissioner Murman called them “iconic symbols” that can help drive heritage tourism. Mayor Bob said they would be a “constant reminder of how we got here” and “who we are.”

Put another way, cities can’t realize their potential unless they have a understanding of their past, their identity. That’s more of a challenge in a city like Tampa where most residents are from somewhere else. This can be an exercise in learning as well as bonding. We can all move forward into the future as Tampanians who don’t just reside here.

And that’s where the addition of Gray Swoope and his VisionFirst Advisors consulting firm comes in. Swoope used to be Florida’s secretary of commerce and CEO of Enterprise Florida. He has connections and an M.O. that Tampa–and its patron saint, Jeff Vinik–need.

He’s also a downtown Tampa believer.

He was notably on hand last December as a presenter when Vinik rolled out his $1 billion, 40-acre, “live, work, play and stay” development near Amalie Arena downtown. He’s known from the get-go of Vinik’s top priority: a major corporate relocatee to complement the USF Medical School, residential, retail, nightlife amenities and maybe MOSI.

Now he’s in the private sector with Hillsborough’s EDC as a client. His assignment: Recruit one or more Fortune 1000 companies to this metro area. To this downtown. “I think the timing is right for headquarters in Tampa,” underscores Swoope.

Swoope now joins Vinik, Mayor Bob Buckhorn and EDC chief Rick Homans as effective pitchmen for this market.

His recruitment was a critical step in the corporate recruitment, the key catalytic element to take downtown Tampa to the next level. To a place that will link yesteryear’s cigar workers with tomorrow’s millennial workforce.

And if Swoope pulls this off, perhaps he should be kept on to pitch mass transit to locals.

We’ve been seeing all kinds of scenarios–and political blowback from the usual suspects–surrounding the normalization of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba. The ramifications of rapprochement range from the humane to the economic to the geopolitical.

And no state or city would benefit more than Florida and Tampa–for all the obvious reasons.

There’s also some interesting international conjecture that has come into play.

City Council member Yoli Capin, who wrote the resolution to bring the Cuban consulate to Tampa, speculates about the implications. “The world is paying attention to the improving relationship of the United States and Cuba,” she points out. “Tampa could become a focal point of it.”

In other words, if you thought the Bollywood Oscars was an arrow in the international quiver, which it was, this, candidly, is a lot more substantial.

And Jeff Carlson, the Tucker/Hall president and a player in the Tampa/Cuba nexus, is thinking even bigger picture.

“There’s talk about Havana becoming the next Singapore or Dubai or Hong Kong of Latin America,” notes Carlson, “and if that happens, we need Tampa to be the main jumping-off point for the United States to do business with Cuba.”

Cuba, to say the least, is about more than closing a Cold War chapter, a vendetta agenda and presidential “legacy shopping.”  It’s about doing what’s in the enlightened self-interest of this country, this state and this city. And like so much of what happens in 2015, the implications are also global.